The site before him was a sicken one to the seventeen year old Journeyman Smith. He'd just been given his Journeyman Badge so he could travel about and do his own work under his own name. He'd left his adoptive father's house only a month before.
Foolishly Ragnr had decided to try his luck on the border on Connlaoth and Serendipity, it was here that he found the caravan of merchants. Many were dead, more were wounded. One man, bound to a tree was weeping and trying to tear himself out of his bindings to reach three women, two who looked to be Ragnr's own age.
Going about to everyone, healing the most seriously wounded, and comforting those who had lost their loved ones he felt a rage build up from deep within, it built like a Smith build the fire in a full size forge. Each cry of a child that had lost their family, each moan of agony from the wounded, made the fire burn brighter and hotter, until he heard the story of what had been done to the women. All had been raped, their families forced to watch. As this knowledge as given to him the fire changed to a deep cold that spread throughout the young man's entire body. The cold was intense he shivered, knowing it was the difference between sanity and chaos that he felt, but not know how to stop it.
He had spent three hours searching, and finally found it, the camp of the Bandits who had done such horrible things, only it wasn't a camp, it was a small hidden village complete with wives chattering noisily, children playing with dogs and sheep grazing in the fields.
The scream of horror snapped the smith from his berserk state. In his hands a women begged for death, not life, as he healed a wound to her chest. Dropping the woman in horror, he looked about him, seeing chaos and destruction everywhere. The Men of the village were trying to wake the people, the dogs cowered in doorways, whining, the sheep lay dead in the field, yet not one creature had a mark on them, all had been brutally tortured and healed by the Smith Mage.
To this day Ragnr has never forgiven himself for this act and he hates himself for it, believe it to be a sign that he is truly becoming the demon he has always been accused of being.
